Sugar Industry Quashed Link Between Sugar And Heart Disease Over 50 Years Ago, Says Report
Posted on September 12, 2016 | Forbes by
A startling new report published today in JAMA Internal Medicine found that more than 50 years ago, sugar industry-funded and guided research successfully suppressed findings linking sugar intake to an increased risk of heart disease.
The influential 1967 literature review, written by prominent nutrition researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, determined that dietary cholesterol and saturated fat were risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), while criticizing studies that linked sugar to CVD.
Behind the sugar industry’s 50-year mission to axe its link to heart disease
Posted on September 12, 2016 | Quartz by
Trust no one.
That’s the takeaway of a new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which claims the sugar industry in the 1960s launched a campaign in which it paid for nutrition research to downplay evidence linking America’s rising sugar consumption to heart disease. In doing so, the industry was able to deflect negative attention away from sugar on to fat and cholesterol, which by the 1980s were seen as the main contributors to cardiovascular disease.
The Nation's First Soda Tax Is Working. Can Its Success Last?
Posted on August 24, 2016 | Bloomberg by Deena Shanker
Minority and low-income residents of Berkeley, Calif., drank 21 percent less of the sugary stuff after the city implemented an excise tax, according to a study published on Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health. ...
"The debate around adoption of the tax raises awareness—a critical piece of how it functions," says David Goldberg, vice president of communications at Healthy Food America, a nonprofit dedicated to using science to change health policy and industry practice.
Study indicates Berkeley soda tax is working
Posted on August 24, 2016 | Politico by Helena Bottemiller Evich
The penny-per-ounce soda tax in Berkeley, Calif., has led to residents in low-income areas reporting they drink sugary drinks less frequently, per a new study published Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health. The cross-sectional study, by University of California, Berkeley researchers, was based on two surveys conducted by interviewers who approached subjects on the street. One was conducted before the tax kicked in, and the other came about 4 months after it hit the books in Jan. 2015; they involved 990 and 1,698 participants, respectively.
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Sugary drinks are ‘uniquely harmful’: Opposing view
Posted on August 1, 2016 | USA Today by Jim Krieger
USA Today's editorial board invited Healthy Food America to provide the response to the newspaper's editorial on sugary drinks taxes.
The time has come to tax sugary drinks like we tax tobacco. The analogy is powerful: As with tobacco, rock-solid evidence shows habitual use harms health. Sugary drinks are a prime culprit in rampant health problems — diabetes, obesity, and heart, dental and liver disease – that cut lives short and drive up health care costs.
Soda Tax Passes in Philadelphia. Advocates Ask: Who’s Next?
Posted on June 16, 2016 | New York Times by Margot Sanger-Katz
Forty times, city or state governments had proposed taxes on sugary soft drinks, failing each time. Then, in 2014, liberal Berkeley, Calif., passed such a tax, but most people saw it as an aberration. Several measures, including one in New York, never won much support.
But on Thursday, a measure to tax sweetened drinks passed in Philadelphia, one of the country’s largest cities — and also one of its poorest. Indeed, raising revenue was the winning argument in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Soda Tax Approved By City Council Committee
Posted on June 9, 2016 | Forbes by
Looks like third time’s the charm when it comes to Philadelphia’s soda tax.
After two failed efforts in the past decade, a Philadelphia City Council committee passed an amended version of Mayor Jim Kenney’s sugary drink tax proposal on Wednesday evening. The measure is expected to pass a final City Council vote next Thursday.
Philadelphia is on track to become the second locale in the nation and the first large U.S. city to adopt a soda tax of at least a penny per ounce. To date, only Berkeley, California has implemented such a tax. The soda industry has fought and killed at least a dozen tax proposals in locations like New York State, California, Maine, San Francisco and Telluride, Colorado.
Will Philly’s Soda Tax Make Coca-Cola the Next Phillip Morris?
Posted on June 9, 2016 | Philadelphia Magazine by
Dr. Jim Krieger is the executive director of Healthy Food America and a supporter of soda taxes. He agrees that a tax on sugary drinks in Philadelphia could create a domino effect. “Taxes on sugary drinks can be an important source of revenue for local communities and states that have not fully recovered from the Great Recession,” he says. “I think that, for other jurisdictions that have their own list of things that they want to support, this will be a good precedent.”
Brownell and Krieger also believe that big-soda bans will likely spread throughout the country in the future. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban was struck down by that state’s highest court in 2014.
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Prepare to pay taxes on soda in cities and towns across the US
Posted on June 9, 2016 | Quartz by Chase Purdy
“Council members stood up to more than $4 million worth of beverage industry pressure to do the right thing for the long-term health and life chances of Philadelphia kids,” said Jim Krieger, a soda tax advocate and executive director of Healthy Food America in a statement.
More money will be spent this year on soda tax measures in other jurisdictions. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is pumping money into San Francisco to get a soda tax measure included on the ballot in November. Voters in Oakland, California, and Boulder, Colorado, also expect to vote on measures this fall.
Philadelphia advances soda tax
Posted on June 9, 2016 | Politico by Ian Kullgren
The big question is whether Philly would open the floodgates for local governments looking for revenue. Jim Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America, a Seattle-based health group that supports such taxes, said more locales are likely to follow: “Philadelphia is showing communities across the country that taxes on sugary drinks are a viable way to recoup industry profits for important community priorities, alert residents to health harms from excessive sugar and start to turn the tide against them.”